Mornings
by acciomahogany
Summary: A series of one-shots featuring a variety of characters. Post-Mockingjay.
1. Katniss

I wake to the scent of bread.

The aroma of warmth and sweetness and compassion envelops me and prods me somewhere deep in the back of my consciousness, a reminder that I should care. Apathy washes over me - today a constant strong tide that soaks me through completely. I've become more or less used to the drowning within myself; the days waver between a gentle shoreline lapping up around my ankles slowing me down, and a wall of rough water that consumes me entirely. I succumb, accepting the pressure that has yet to leave my lungs and float heavily downstairs.

He is here, obviously. I have yet to ascertain whether his morning visits are due to some undying love he still possesses, locked inside somewhere along with remembrance, or merely painful curiosity regarding the years his memory has lost. Or someone is paying him to ensure I haven't destroyed anything, myself included. Most assume he is the only thing that ties me here. Yes, that is most likely why and yes I will be bitter.

He is illuminated in the ever-changing glow of sunrise, bathed in a hue close to his favorite shade. He murmurs a greeting I barely register, I'm too busy carving a fork into the wood of the cabinet in front of me. I lose reality for only a moment before his warm calloused hands slide the utensil from fist.

"Stop, Katniss," He mutters and resumes pulling bread from the oven. I stare blankly and lose the ability or the need or maybe just the desire to have control of my eyes. I don't have the strength to pull myself out of staring into space today. He turns with the steaming tray, dropping it haphazardly on the counter in front of him and closes his eyes. I can see the wave of apathy crash over him - rivulets of loss steeply dripping from his chest to the floor, droplets of anger rolling down his weathered hands, streams of sorrow pouring over his knees, but most of all he is drenched in exhaustion.

I cannot move, soaked in the same absence of hope as he is. Absentmindedly I pick up the fork again, worrying the silver stem between my palms. Before I can tip the prongs to the wood again, carving my emotions into the mahogany, he snatches it from my grip. I lazily watch him. The blue of his eyes are shocks against the dark shadows they have sunken into. He puts the fork away as I remain frozen, staring at him shamelessly. His hair is mussed and I feel like I should reach out at fix it but what can I do? I'd make it worse, the sandy locks would turn to dust in my hands, or burn, or turn green and I will again ruin everything I touch.

No, but I wouldn't do any good; it would remain matted and tangled. I am not my mother, I am not...

I am not granted the gift of compassion, of selflessness that other members of my family have and had been blessed with. This truth will destroy me, will ultimately be the weight that drags me down and drowns me in my apathy. No one expects anything more from me anyway. I can live like this forever, bobbing through life and sinking through nightmares in an ocean as blue as his eyes.

Those eyes are focused down in unnecessary concentration as he wearily drags the knife through the cooled loaf. I claw myself out of inward reflection and muster the energy to take a bite of the piece he sets before me. It's sweet, with a slight tang from the cheese baked into the top. It's like the cheese buns, the recipe he hasn't made since before the Quarter Quell. I swallow it down through the tightness in my throat. It doesn't taste like ash in my mouth like all food has. I pick at the rest of the slice, slowly savoring and finishing the last bits. He cleans, I eat. My routine of being undeserving continues.

He wraps the rest of the loaf for me, the sun shining fully through window with the passing of time.

"Your favorite," He sighs and drops the package in front of me. My jaw gapes as I watch him turn to leave. He remembered. The storm my heart and mind calms, for a moment I do not feel submerged within myself.

"Peeta," I sputter, and he turns, weariness present in every part of the motion. Those blue eyes stare at me, expecting nothing. I feel my moment of resolve dimming, the brief fire in me being doused out with his hopeless look. I'm not the girl on fire to him anymore. All he has left hijacked or not, is the hard tired girl locked inside her selfishness. But I don't care anymore; I don't care what he expects from me. I can say or not say whatever I like.

"Good morning," A smile ghosts his face. He steps out the doorway.

"Good morning, Katniss,"

A pressure releases in my lungs as I go and finish the whole loaf of bread. For the first time in a while, I don't feel like I'm drowning.


	2. Annie

I wake to sea-green loneliness.

I'm crying and he's crying and I don't know what to do about either of us. The short arm of the clock barely pushes past seven and I am already wilting.

I don't understand today; his sea-foam eyes and bronze hair are too reminiscent and I am confused because the man I loved is the child in front of me now. I wait till the tidal wave crashes over him, leaving me treading water and him drowning. But that isn't what happens, no, he drinks a Capitol concoction and is turned young again. Or maybe it was loss of blood, or a fire. But no, those weren't it either. I am at a loss as to who is before me, a perfect physical blend of past and present. Though muddled, I resist clamping my palms to my ears to shut out his wailing, resist forcing my eyelids close to stanch the flow of my own tears.

Eventually I remember. Though his presence wrenches me back and forth between the old and the new, dreams and reality, it saves me.

My days are the same. Wake up, eat, feed, survive, sing, sleep, wake up, feed, eat, survive, sing, sleep, repeat. I mostly like the routine, except for the surviving, the long stretches of silence and mechanical motions that long ago I all but lost the motivation to continue. But then there are those lovely little beats of time throughout the day that make it all worth it, like a sea turtle sunning itself in hellishly hot sand - those moments with him.

I adore him. Even on the days I forget who I am he is there cooing and clutching to my shirt front, little fists curled into the material soaked with saltwater from the air and from our eyes. His little heartbeat thumps against mine in an inexplicable pas de deux between mother and son and it makes me cry because this little boy is the only thing tying me to the earth still. Nevertheless, there are times where the sight of him makes me lose all grips on reality.

I am no longer simply the mad girl from District 4. First I am the sad, widowed, single mother, then the mad girl. It doesn't sound any better but it is, it's purposeful. It's exactly what I need.

This morning I find the motivation to bring him with me to the most sacred place on earth. The sun grazes the horizon, gently tipping the scale of night and day with the moon which still sinks behind me. I cannot breathe as the great and terrible memories resurface.

I am thoroughly unprepared for a venture such as this - planning is something his father would has ensured but all I have left of him is sea-green and bronze; they surround me on the shore. Instead I sail on a whim with the desire to see him with his hair and his eyes and his cheeks sitting on the shore. Bu now I've forgotten the real reason I'm here...

We make it, and I manage to drop the old net into his lap before I collapse, unable to take one step further through that sand, the beige crystals underfoot taunting with the vast expanse of ocean in front of me, something that I could never truly have now. I cannot take a step closer; my resolve will break, and not even the little bit of perfection in my life that squirms at my side with knots twisted in his pure, soft hands will be able to save me like he has before.

He teeters as he stands and turns toward the water with obvious awe, drool smudged across his golden cheeks. It reminds me of frosting and cotton and mahogany bedposts...

He wants to go to the sea. I can't bear it. He cries when I swoop in before the space between the two of us increases.

"I'm sorry," I moan in an attempt to appease him. He cries himself out in the brief tantrum, eventually enthralled by my hair instead of the wonder that laps at the shore in front of him. I can't remember why but he just can't go near the water, he can't, I'll die if he does, I don't know what I'm doing...

I cannot lose him. I swear on my life that I will not. No longer can I slip and slide with the will of fate, trapped inside an everlasting window of real and not real, present and past. I need the future now, I need to be grounded, I need him.

I give him a kiss and he gives me a smile. I am more land than water these days.

* * *

AN: Inspired by The Ocean by Dar Williams. I don't know if I interpreted Annie's voice well, it's just been something I've been wanting to try, so I apologize if she's OOC.


End file.
